Address

Thank you to our Annunciation supporters for making our first Family Fun Night in 2016 a huge success. We kept the staff at Tomato Cafe on their toes with a steady stream of families and friends all night. From the owner, “The families were wonderful with great energy!”

A huge thank you as well to Mrs. MC Sandoval for opening up the Gymboree Play & Music space for our kids to run around and play during the evening.

To top off all the fun, we raised $320 from the event.

The class with the most participation was Ms. Sanchez’s 3rd grade class! She will receive a $25 gift card from Tomato Cafe and the class will get a celebration as well. Great job!

We hope to see all of you at our next Family Fun Night at Roller Skate City on February 2nd.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Imagine you are having an all-you-can-eat experience where the service is sociable and the food appealing and fresh. Rather than facing 82 options, choose from a restrained number of high-quality items to keep your taste buds happy but your plate not overwhelmed.

While savoring the meal, don’t forget to take a sip from your glass of wine or beer. No cookie-cutter buffet can do this. You are in a two-decades-old local restaurant in love with feeding you well. That restaurant is called Tomato Cafe, and its two locations are the pride of owner Deborah Gagnon.

During lunch, a mere $8.49 gains one access to a spread containing pizzas, pasta, sauces and salad – even soft-serve ice cream for the finale. The salad bar is exceedingly fresh but more limited than I prefer. I tend to adorn my salads with dozens of toppings, but with spinach this vibrant the usual veggies like mushrooms, tomatoes and carrots will suffice.

Tomato Cafe focuses primarily on pasta and pizza. With a half-dozen pizzas on display at any moment, both meat eaters and lovers of gourmet combinations like feta cheese and pine nuts will find a match. The crust is thin but sturdy enough for any of the toppings and rises above any buffet pizza I have ever had – ignore the heat lamps and you’d swear they cooked the pizza just for you.

My server came by often to check on me, making sure everything was up to par. After a while his friendliness bordered on too much attention, and in a lightly populated dining room he certainly had the time. More

Tomato Cafe ® in Albuquerque was chosen by the New Mexico Restaurant Association from its approximately 1,000 food-service members to compete for the national Restaurant Neighbor Award.

The program of the National Restaurant Association recognizes food-service establishments for outstanding community service. The program is in its 10th year, and the winner will be announced in Washington, D.C., in September.

“We are honored that Tomato Cafe&reg is being considered for this prestigious award,” said New Mexico Restaurant Association CEO Carol Wight. “They have made significant contributions to the community through their food donation program with Desert Harvest Food Rescue. Members like the Tomato Cafe ® exemplify the giving nature of restaurateurs who are active supporters of their communities.”

“Restaurants are the cornerstone of local communities across the nation, supporting local and national initiatives, or creating their own programs to make a difference in issues about which they are passionate,” said National Restaurant Association President and CEO Dawn Sweeney. “Many restaurants also involve both guests and employees in their efforts to inspire a true sense of community.”

The Tomato Cafe ®, at 5901 Wyoming Blvd. NE,(NEW ADDRESS: 5920 Holly Ave Albuquerque, New Mexico 87113 TEL: (505) 821-9300) features an all-you-can-eat buffet with specialty pizzas, pasta and salad. As part of the Desert Harvest Food Rescue Program, it donates all leftover food every day of the year. Since 2002, it has given more than 60,000 pounds of food to the program, which provides it to two homeless shelters in Albuquerque.

Albuquerque, NM – The New Mexico Restaurant Association today announced that one of their member restaurants is in the running for the national Restaurant Neighbor Award, a program by the National Restaurant Association that recognizes outstanding community service, to be presented in Washington, D.C., this September. The winner is: Tomato Café in Albuquerque. The prestigious Restaurant Neighbor Award program is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

“We are honored that Tomato Café is being considered for this prestigious award. They have made significant contributions to the community through their food donation program with Desert Harvest Food Rescue. Members like the Tomato Café exemplify the giving nature of restaurateurs who are active supporters of their communities,” said New Mexico Restaurant Association CEO Carol Wight.

“Now in its 10th year, our Restaurant Neighbor Award program allows us to recognize and highlight the philanthropy that is so abundant in our industry,” said National Restaurant Association President and CEO Dawn Sweeney. “Restaurants are the cornerstone of local communities across the nation, supporting local and national initiatives, or creating their own programs to make a difference in issues about which they are passionate. Many restaurants also involve both guests and employees in their efforts to inspire a true sense of community. “

Tomato Café was selected because of their work with Desert Harvest Food Rescue Program. They donate all of their leftover food to the program every day, fifty-two weeks a year. Since 2002, they have donated over 60,000 pounds of food to the program, which provides food to two homeless shelters in Albuquerque.

The Restaurant Neighbor Award honors charitable contributions in four categories (small business, mid-size business, national chain, and Cornerstone Humanitarian). The New Mexico winner will compete with winners from other states and be eligible for the national award. One national winner in each category will be announced at the National Restaurant Association’s Public Affairs Conference in Washington, D.C., held September 23-24, 2008. The national winners will each receive a $5,000 award to continue their community programs, and a trip to the nation’s capital for the award ceremony.

The National Restaurant Association and founding partner American Express developed the Restaurant Neighbor Award to recognize outstanding community programs across the country and to inspire other restaurant operators and owners to do what they can in their communities.

A profile of the national and state winners’ community service efforts will be highlighted in a booklet, as well as on the National Restaurant Association’s Web site, www.restaurant.org/community.

Tomato Cafe owner Deborah Gagnon is growing her company’s roots by setting up a licensing agreement with an Arizona partnernship

Deborah Gagnon has heard it all.

Gagnon, president of Albuquerque-based Tomato Cafe Inc., an upscale gourmet Italian food bar with one location in the Northeast Heights, has received at least 20 phone calls over the past decade from people wanting to duplicate her concept elsewhere through licensing arrangements.

The licensing concept has always intrigued Gagnon, 43, an athletically-built firecracker who helped grow her small business into one of the city’s most popular independent restaurants since opening in 1993.

“The restaurant business will eat you up and spit you out,” she says, acknowledging the industry’s notoriously long hours and constant competition from national chains. “You just don’t want to grow old in it.”

Having a source of residual income through a licensing agreement — which would put extra money in Gagnon’s pocket without having to invest much of her own — had seemed the way to go in recent years, if the right opportunity came along.

But that never happened. Either potential buyers would know how to operate a restaurant, but didn’t have the financial backing, or were plenty rich but had no business savvy. Few, if any, could provide the whole package.

“I never got that combination,” she says.

Last year, however, things changed. In April, Kathy and Steve Dodd, a 30-something couple from Lake Havasu, Ariz., who had roots in Albuquerque, asked Gagnon about launching a Tomato Cafe in their area. Steve had prior experience with Frito Lay and in grocery store management, and both had been running a successful Keva Juice franchise.

“I felt, finally, this may be the couple to make it happen,” Gagnon recalls.

In January, after eight long months of negotiations, Gagnon signed with the Dodds her first licensing agreement. The pair intend to open the first out-of-state Tomato Cafe next spring in Lake Havasu, a popular tourist destination. More